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Why does nobody seem to repeat Seb Bouin’s routes?
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It seems like so many high end sport climbers FA things at the upper echelon and folks rush to try their routes. The only real exception to this being Ondra’s eastern euro routes. Why doesn’t anybody seem to want to repeat Seb’s lines? Why has DNA seen so little interest from other top end climbers? |
Tal M wrote: As best as I can tell, there are about 4 climbers in the world not named Seb Bouin who have or will soon climb at a 9c level: Ghisolfi, Megos, Schubert, Ondra. DNA has been open for 1.5 years, and Jakob Schubert has done all the moves on it. Silence has been open for 6.5 years and Ghisolfi is the only person to have made serious attempts at repeating it. I think it's important to remember that these guys would have to commit at least a season to training and peaking just for that route to have any reasonable chance at doing it. If you're going to make the commitment to try to climb 9c, there is also a strong incentive to put that effort into an FA of your own. La Ramirole is effectively a home crag for Seb and has conditions that are tough to manage, so I think Ondra's Czech routes are a fairly apt comparison. On a related note, Seb Berthe just repeated Bouin's Beyond (9a+) and expressed interest in trying the extension (9b/+) in the future. |
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I think Seb has also done all of the moves on Silence - though I guess my question was more oriented towards his non 9c climbs. I’m not too familiar with conditions in La Ramirole or the Verdon but I figured that might play a role into it as well |
Tal M wrote: What routes are you talking about specifically? The first three that come to me are DNA, Nordic Marathon, and Supreme Jumbo Love.
La Rage Adam and Beyond Integral are the only other ones I can think of that are worth mentioning that have not been repeated and conveniently located, to my knowledge, but they also took Seb something like 4 or 5 years to send iirc. As the previous poster mentioned, there aren’t many (if any) climbers stronger than Seb so it checks out his hardest routes aren’t going to see many ascents, especially as all the ones in the 9b+ and 9c range are less than a year or two old. How long did it take for other notable 9c’s to be repeated? Genuinely asking, because I feel like it was a few years before anyone repeated a 5.15a after the first ones were done. Also, how are we sure people aren’t climbing/projecting on Seb‘s routes and just aren’t posting it all over IG and Mellow? |
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I’m pretty sure Seb has like 20+ unrepeated lines in France alone 14a and harder. Seb worked silence with Adam. Jakob and Adam worked BIG together. Bibliographie has multiple repeats within a year. Sleeping lion had a repeat (and potentially multiple) within 6 months. La Dura Dura, Perfecto, etc. Better yet - what historic hard routes didn’t have people at least chomping at the bit to repeat them?
Is this a real argument or just a shot in the dark? Realistically who would be a candidate for climbing that hard and repeating those lines and not posting about it online that has a history of that? |
Tal M wrote: Yes, and here’s why; this was more referring to your primary interest in non 5.15 routes. Nobody cares about people sending 5.14 routes anymore so you’re not gonna hear about it. I mean Mirsky climbed Flex Luthor, downgraded it, and it was still virtually unnoticed by most climbers. I think Climbing mag posted one article online…maybe. His days projecting it certainly weren’t publicized and I honestly would not have known he sent had I not heard it from one of his climbing partners. Nobody cares about people projecting, and they certainly don’t care about projecting 5.14’s. Unless it’s a send of V16 or higher, 5.15c or higher, or controversial nobody is going to be paying much attention.
Shawn Raboutou immediately comes to mind. BJ Tilden as well. Both sent either V16 or 5.15 and either did not post about it (BJ Tilden) or waited long durations before posting (Shawn). I’m sure there are probably a couple more, especially if we are including those who are doing 5.14 and lower end 5.15 routes. Adjacently, another example of this is Noah Wheeler sending Defying Gravity recently (that was silently posted by Mellow) and basically went unnoticed until Mellow released a video of a well known climber in Nathaniel Coleman doing it and alluded to Nathaniel Coleman getting the third ascent even though Noah had done it days prior to Nathaniel. Not every strong climber is live streaming their sessions…especially roped climbers.
Bibliographie is an anomaly as it’s a variation of an existing line. The other routes you mentioned have other hard routes super close. I am less familiar with Seb’s routes but it seems like the ones that haven’t seen ascents quickly are in locations where they are isolated from other harder routes.
Jumbo Love, Burden of Dreams, most of the harder routes at Fortress of Solitude come to mind. |
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I think a bit of the above is anecdotal - to offer my anecdotal evidence, I was aware of Evan sending Defying essentially as soon as it happened (though maybe because I’m very plugged into the Platte) - BJs ascent got pretty wide notoriety even if he himself didn’t announce it (including the top of the climbing subreddit at the time). Shawn’s ascents were horribly kept secrets and the real mystery was whether or not he sent BoD on his trip or not. While it seems like only 15c and above is notable these days, the truth is that most 14a and harder ascents are published by most climbers capable of doing them, and 9a and above climbs are pretty much always going to get some sort of mention. I know your last comment is tongue in cheek but there’s a huge area between “completely unknown ascent/repeat” and “live streaming your session and being featured on the front page of climbing mag” and that’s where 99% of climbs in that 14a and 15c range live. The only person I know who is routinely crushing on that level and not getting mentioned is griff - and if I’m being honest I don’t see a world in which Griff, BJ, or Shawn is heading to France to put down some unrepeated 9a and above. |
Not Trevor wrote: We’re having a dialogue about a subject with no objective answer, I responded to your response with a viewpoint that differs from yours. You know, normal human conversation ebb and flow. Also for what it’s worth
Is definitely not true. Jumbo Love had folks openly attempting a repeat and a first ascent before Chris got it. BoD has D Woods at least openly there relatively quickly after the FA and more folks shortly after. I mean, shit, there’s a video of J Webb, D Woods and Nalle all on it while it was still a project. Who touched DNA other than Seb while he was working on it? I have no idea about the fortress stuff though, that could indeed be a great example - probably partially due to both the approach and how chossy the line is combined with the cleaning ethics of the time I’m not trying to construct a narrative at all with this conversation - I’m just genuinely confused because I personally have not seen someone’s climbs with such notoriety be blown off by the high end community at large so consistently as Seb’s and I’m wondering if it’s a style thing or something |
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the answer to the OP's question is fairly obvious - Seb's hardest routes are all in his most formidable style - pure power endurance, savagery and hard for the grade. There are very few athletes who can match his effort in projecting these kind of king lines. He is one of the very few who can climb a very pumpy 5.14+ but not get pumped, then execute back to back double-digit boulder problems. No doubt a few are trying his routes (because they look amazing), but sending them is another story entirely. |
Tal M wrote: If you say so
Already answered that…but again, maybe it wasn’t a good enough answer for ya…
Aside from Ethan Pringle who else was trying to get the FA after Randy opened it up to the public?
DWoods notoriously spent extremely little time projecting this (like only one session). I thought JWebb was in the same boat. Either way, wasn’t it almost a decade after it was originally sent before it started seeing traffic again? I’m not sure BoD qualifies…
This could be said of every 5.15d except B.I.G.
Idk man, there’s been several posts pointing out plausible reasons you seem to be passing over (very few people climb that hard, his routes aren’t conveniently located based on the grade, people may actually be climbing them, etc.) |
Fan Y wrote: This makes sense - after watching his Reel Rock video the whole “I physiologically don’t get pumped” is a pretty unique trait I figured would affect things. I could see that being a very reasonable reason to not pursue a repeat of his lines Not Trevor - it seems like we’re talking in circles a bit here. I wanna be clear that I’m not asking why a 15b-d from him hasn’t been repeated in the 1-2 years it’s been established, I’m asking why people aren’t publicly working them like they have with BIG, Silence, Bibliographie, Sleeping Lion, BoD, Alphane, RotS, Jumbo Love, Biographie, La Dura Dura, Perfecto Mundo, etc. All of those had multiple people publicly projecting them closely before/during/after the FA (regardless if they actually got repeated or not). As far as I’m aware - nobody has actually projected DNA or his other hard lines (ACL, etc) before/during/after his FA. Your point about location/access/season is totally plausible too - I’m not familiar enough with the Verdun to know. Your discussion about “folks may be secretly trying it” is irrelevant to the discussion of “why is nobody publicly trying it”.
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